I am so excited for my real food adventures during this new year! I can’t wait to plant my garden- there are many things that didn’t quite work as well as I was hoping last year, and I can’t wait to tweak things and try some new ideas and methods. I also am very excited for our new batch of baby goats that should be born in March! And of course, with new baby goats comes lots of milk to play with!
Soon, berries and tomatoes will be in season and the canning adventures will start once again.
Here are the rest of the goals I have for my kitchen and our homestead in 2011. Let the games begin!
1. Acquire dairy kefir grains and begin incorporating kefir into our diet to increase our consumption of pro biotic foods.
2. Acquire water kefir grains and experiment with different flavors and techniques to find varieties that I and my husband enjoy.
3. Purchase/make/or improvise a cheese press.
4. Make cheddar or some other variety of hard cheese that I can store and age for winter consumption.
5. Learn how to sprout. So I jumped the gun a little and started my sprouting adventures in December. Now to find more recipes in which to use my sprouts.
6. Figure out how to make a round, rustic, primarily whole wheat, sourdough loaf of bread. This goal has been 4 years in the making… It’s my husband’s #1 request and has resulted in failure after failure. But– we are closer than ever before and success is so near I can taste it!
7. Acquire a wheat grinder and use home ground grains for all of my cooking. (I got a Nutrimill for Christmas! Now to get in the routine of using it and storing bulk grains!)
8. Make lacto-fermented ketchup
9. Make lacto-fermented mayo
10. Purchase at least one (maybe two) calves for butchering in 2012.
11. Get rid of our old, worn out hens and purchase a new flock of chicks early in the spring.
12. Figure out a way to incorporate more free ranging or organic feed for our chickens. We’ve struggled being able to turn them loose thus far, as we have 3 chicken-eating dogs…
13. Try some new vegetables in the garden and experiment with some new techniques.
14. This is an on-going project, but we are planning on beefing up our food storage as much as possible this year. I need to do more research on effectively storing grains, beans, etc. We want to be prepared for whatever life may throw our way.
15. Make soap. I have all the ingredients- now just to put them together!
Whew! This is by no means an exhaustive list, but just some of the bigger projects I’m planning for 2011! If we don’t achieve all of them, I won’t be too worried, but it’s nice to be able to see them all in front of you. I will be updating this post as we check each adventure off of the list.
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That's a long list of goals but I think it's definitely something you can manage. I am itching to try my hand at making kefir too. In fact, I am kinda hoping to do so when I visit my best friend (who lives almost 1000 miles away) because I think her kids would be amused by making their own soda.
Yes, it is a long list, but we like to keep our plate (really) full, so I think we can do it!
You will have to let me know how your kefir experiments go! I can't wait to get started with it!
Looks like a very good list, I'm still thinking about my goals.
-Brenda
Hi Jill
I found you through Simple Lives Thursday … I have sourdough starter from San Francisco, now in Seattle, if you want some. I have only made 1:4 wheat:bread flour loaves successfully (actually 1:3:1 of wheat:bread:All Purpose). I haven't experimented with home-ground wheat though. Good luck!
I just got some Milk Kefir Grains from a local this week. Tried it for this first time this week with some honey and strawberries. Very yummy. I have to blend it with things to get my husband to try it. If you were near by I could share when I have extras. I also would love to get my hands on some Water Kefir Grains!
Looks like ‘train the dogs’ was an oversight.